Research at Heron Island on the world's fastest growing abalone is likely to spawn new employment opportunities in another tropical region - at Broome in Western Australia.
University of Queensland and CSIRO scientists have been awarded a $200,000 Federal Government SPIRT (Strategic Partnerships with Industry - Research and Training) grant to advance a project developing a viable tropical abalone aquaculture industry for Australia.
A research team led by Dr Bernie Degnan (University of Queensland) and Dr Kevin Williams (CSIRO) is unlocking secrets of the tropical cocktail abalone (Haliotis asinina), a potential new domestic and export species for south-east Asian, North American and European markets.
The project is working closely with the Tropical Aquaculture Park currently being established at Broome by the Western Australian Fisheries Department in partnership with the Rubibi Aboriginal Heritage, Land and Development Company Pty Ltd and aquaculturist D.J. Chrismas.
The park will provide serviced lease sites for enterprise development and related activities, including education, training and research, to develop a new industry in the region. Since the Western Australian group had limited experience in cultivating this animal, they contacted the University of Queensland to establish a collaboration to ensure success for the venture.
Dr Degnan said Haliotis asinina had great potential as a new aquaculture species for Australia, with the country having many logistical advantages over other countries, including suitable coastal sites.
The commercial attractiveness of the species lay chiefly in its rapid growth rate.
'This little guy is ready for market in less than a year, compared with five years for some temperate species,' Dr Degnan said.
'It has a well-documented spawning cycle that provides a regular source of abalone.'
The species reaches sexual maturity at 12 months when each female predictably releases up to half a million eggs in warmer months. The spawning process turns water cloudy as billions of sperm race to fertilise millions of eggs.
The tropical abalone species occurs naturally in tropical Australian waters from the Great Barrier Reef to Ningaloo Reef, off Western Australia, as well as the Indo-Pacific and south-east Asia.
Further research into the basic biology and cultivation phases of the abalone is being conducted both in the field and laboratory conditions at the University's Heron Island Research Station, near Gladstone.
Dr Degnan said the abalone industry contributed $120 million a year to the Australian economy, with aquaculture considered a reliable source of high-quality abalone.
He said despite huge expenditure into temperate species grown in South Australia and Tasmania, their slow growth rates, irregular spawning and long generation times had hampered industry advances.
'Smaller tropical species have recently emerged as viable alternatives to temperate species, because they are perfect for the cocktail abalone market recently developed by the North Americans and Japanese,' Dr Degnan said.
'There is an established market already for Haliotis asinina, with abalone fished in south-east Asia being consumed in that region, and in China, Japan, Europe and Australia.'
He said anecdotal information suggested the abalone would fetch A$50 a kilogram in the Asian market.
'As an example of the demand, the Philippines alone exported 500 tonnes of this species in 1993 - some of this shipment was imported by Australia,' Dr Degnan said.
'This level of demand clearly places pressure on natural stocks, but in spite of this, aquaculture production of this species is non-existent, and only in Queensland, Thailand and the Philippines are research efforts underway.'
For the past four years, Dr Degnan's group has worked on the species in association with CSIRO.
They have been studying the biology of the species and identifying and manipulating genes that confer desired traits in culture.
Dr Degnan said the ongoing research had provided important insights into the reproductive and larval biology, nutrition, growth and genetics of the species.
The University of Queensland group has isolated a range of genes, including those encoding transcription factors and hormone processing enzymes that may be involved in regulating growth and/or reproduction.
Simultaneously, the researchers have developed mass gene transfer methods and expression vectors that contain gene promoters. They have also developed a battery of microsatellite DNA markers that will be applied to future selective breeding programs.
'We have undertaken market trials in Taiwan and Australia and have identified the international and national markets,' Dr Degnan said.
'We have also submitted the abalone for taste tests to Asian restaurants in Sydney, indicating that the species is well suited to the Japanese style of cooking.'
Dr Degnan has been involved in abalone research in California and South Africa and was recently part of the South African industry reconstruction program at the University of Capetown. This project explored ranching communities in inter-tidal zones seeded with abalone to protect the species from poaching.
A senior lecturer in the Zoology Department, Dr Degnan has a joint appointment in the Centre for Molecular and Cellular Biology. The SPIRT grant will largely cover the salary of an Australian Postgraduate Award (Industry) scholar, still unknown. The research group also includes three PhD students, Australian Postgraduate Award holders Liz O'Brien and David McNamara and CSIRO Fisheries scholar Regina Counihan.
Media: For further information, contact Dr Degnan telephone 07 3365 2467, email: bdegnan@zoology.uq.edu.au or Dr Kevin Williams, telephone 07 3365 2467.
